


go robot

by Elendraug



Series: "I'm basically fucking him." [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Divergent Timelines, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, Robotics, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 19:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15322131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendraug/pseuds/Elendraug
Summary: I don’t take these things so personal anymore; I don’t think that it’s unbearable anymore.





	go robot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreakyHumanShit (Maim)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maim/gifts).



> Have you guys seen _Ex Machina_? Hal’s skin works like that.
> 
> Thanks as always to my friends who cheered me on to get this finished, it's good to be writing again
> 
> ♫ [go robot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI-8CVixZ5o) \- red hot chili peppers
> 
> & bonus tracks
> 
> ♫ [cracked lcd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x-tCOWkMag) \- ladytron
> 
> ♫ [tonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2NRe4wWRAM) \- freezepop
> 
> ♫ [in tokyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olcVARgp-D8) \- studio killers

[GT: I cant believe its already been...](https://www.homestuck.com/story/5523)  
GT: How long?  
GT: What, like a year already since we entered? Holy moly, where does the time go.  
GG: It's been more like five months.  
GT: Oh.  
GT: Well thats still a pretty long time.  
GT: I have to admit its been a longer stint than i expected. Certainly one involving more downtime than i would have guessed.  
GT: I really thought we would have been treated to more action, what being legendary players of a mysterious cosmic game. But no, it seems the primary duty of the so called nobles is to wait around twiddling our thumbs.  
GG: Mmhmm.  
GT: I am really beginning to wonder when these fabled heroes will arrive? And are they really going to be those we have been led to believe?  
GT: I sure hope so. Id so love to meet my pen pal. Dear old departed grandma. But as a feisty youngster! What a hoot thatll be. And you with your poppop. Lets not forget about him.  
GT: Not to mention the young strider and lalonde relatives. I bet theyre a barrel of laughs. I met them once but i was too shy to say anything. Then i got in a fight. Did i ever mention that jane?  
GG: Yes.  
GG: Many times.  
GT: Not to say its been all downtime and doldrums. Exploring has been great. Finding treasure, solving riddles, becoming better friends. I wouldnt trade that for anything.  
GT: And maybe we are getting close to something big happening regardless? Every day it seems like more and more undead creatures crawl from out of the shadows. Bigger ones and stronger ones. Does their presence herald something worse coming, just as the legends indicate our presence heralds something better?

* * *

“But that’s my point,” Jake says through a mouthful of Betty Crocker Au Gratin Made With 100% Real Sliced Potatoes. He gestures with his fork. “Whether I damn well like it or not I’ve had to come to terms with the facts.”

Roxy rests her hand on Jake’s shoulder, and after an expectant beat, she rubs his back through his plaid shirt and prompts him. “Which facts, Jake?”

Jake stabs his fork into another slice of rehydrated potato. “My grandmother won’t be coming to visit us.”

There’s silence. The packaging for the potatoes is still on the table. Dirk keeps his eyes fixated on the back of the box and reads the ingredients.

“It’s—it’s just so hard to say,” Jane offers, but it’s clear she doesn’t even believe herself. “We knew when we began this session that we would have to wait.”

Sea salt. 

“How long is a fellow supposed to keep his hopes up before he’s just a damned fool?”

Sodium citrate. 

“We never really thought we’d have much of a timeline to count on, y’know?” Roxy pets circles on his back for a few more seconds, then reconsiders and lets her hand fall to her lap. “Besides, we couldn’t do a lot other than just go by the info we had and try our best.”

Silicon dioxide (anticaking aging).

“So what about when our best has been bested?” He drops his fork on the plate. It’s louder than even he had intended, and he flinches. “We may as well be honest with ourselves.”

Color (yellow lakes 5 & 6).

Dirk glances up from the box and instead to Jake. “Is that what we’re doing now? Being honest with ourselves?”

Jake snaps before there’s time to think better of it. “Some of us have been a smidge _too_ honest with our _selves_ if you ask me.”

“Jakey, please don’t.”

Dirk sighs through his nose.

“Let’s all try to cool our jets, shall we?” Jane forces a smile and stirs a red spoon through the serving platter. “We’re all friends here.”

Freshness Preserved by Sodium Bisulfite.

“There’s not a day I don’t wonder,” Jake continues, with the trepidation set into his expression of someone who knows he should let it drop, “what it was precisely that made this mess go awry to begin with.”

Jane shakes her head. “We can’t know what would’ve happened, Jake. We don’t know what was supposed to go on, or not go on.”

Nonfat milk.

“I have to say _it seems_ plain to me that we were not supposed to go on detours involving dating a—”

Roxy grabs Jake’s upper arm and shoots him a look. “Actually, you _don’t_ have to say it.”

Dirk notes that the potatoes contain an unreasonably high level of salt. Even in his own head, he doesn’t feel clever for contemplating it. He leans his chin on his hand and half expects someone to tell him not to put his elbow on the table.

No one does.

Jane makes a judgment call, stands up, and takes the finished dinner plates away, one by one. “Would anybody like some coffee?”

“I would,” Dirk says. “Thanks.”

“We’ll take some too, Janey.”

Jake looks uncertain if he wanted coffee or not, but has been spoken for, and resigns himself to looking away from the table and towards the living room.

They settle into a tenuous quiet around the table as Jane busies herself with an on-brand electric kettle and sets out five bright white mugs. 

Jake scoffs.

“So,” Dirk hazards. “How have you guys been?” 

“Good! Real good. We’re working on the trellis that we set up a while ago.” To her credit, she’s trying to be chipper.

“Oh yeah?” Dirk has less success modulating his voice, but Roxy’s charitable.

“It’s tough to keep all those vines cooperating since they just get so thick. Right, Jake?”

“Righto.”

“It’s, y’know, we thought it’d be a kinda fun project, and don’t get me wrong! It has been.” Roxy rubs her thumb on Jake’s forearm. There are only short intervals between moments in which she is establishing physical contact with him somehow. “But convincing all those vines to grow in a way that’s decorative instead of just a big ol’ clusterfuck has been trickier than we anticipated.”

Dirk picks up the cardboard box and peels the bottom flap apart, breaking through the adhesive. “Sounds like it’s more than you bargained for, yeah.”

“It’ll be worth it when it’s all done, huh Jake?”

Jake looks like he wants to add something to this, but doesn’t follow through with it. He nods, watching Jane as she starts up the coffee grinder.

The noise of the beans grinding makes it temporarily impossible to talk.

Dirk folds the box down and sets it on the table. The structural integrity of the cardboard prevents it from collapsing entirely. 

The noise from the grinder dies down.

“So, um.” Roxy looks at Jake—who’s not looking at her—and then back to Dirk. “So how’s your hubby?”

The electric kettle picks up where the grinder left off, and adds to the kitchen cacophony. Dirk sets his hand on top of the box until it’s flat against the table. When he speaks, it’s a struggle to be heard over the rising, bubbling sound of steam.

“He was under the impression that he was invited.”

Jane misses as she’s pouring ground coffee into the French press and swears as half of it heaps on the countertop. The bag of whole beans crinkles as she opens it back up, dumps enough beans into the hopper to make up for what spilled, and starts the grinder again.

“Does anyone else think it’s rather loud in here?” Jake announces. “Or is it just me?”

Dirk bites at the inside of his cheek to keep himself from escalating anything. The temptation is there: the _this seems normal to me, must just be you_ or the _your bullshit is falling on mercifully deaf ears_ or any other number of retorts that are punchy when he fantasizes about saying them, but that he’s gradually realized are less effective when spoken aloud.

The replacement coffee successfully reaches the original batch in the French press, piled amply for a strong brew. Jane tears a paper towel from a roll and coaxes the spilled grounds onto it, then deposits it in the trash.

Dirk watches as some of it misses the paper towel entirely and lands on the floor in a fine dusting of rich brown. The electric kettle chooses that moment to reach a rolling boil, and Jane rushes to retrieve it. With her wearing socks, it’s a potential impending disaster, and even if not, getting up gets him out of this conversation.

“Careful.” Dirk stands and puts a cautious hand on Jane’s shoulder before she picks up the kettle, to head off any risk of the sickest possible burns.

“Hm?”

“There was more that fell.” Dirk grabs another segment of paper towel from the roll and dampens it under a thin stream of water from the sink.

Jane looks down, frustrated with the mess. “Right, yes. Thank you, Dirk.”

He kneels and wipes it up. “No problem.”

Jane pours the water into the French press, stirs it, and replaces the lid for it to steep.

Dirk throws away the paper towel, rinses off his fingers briefly, and wipes his hand on his pant leg. He doesn’t sit back down.

Roxy runs her thumb over Jake’s knuckles as she holds his hand, and stares not at Dirk and Jane but somewhere vaguely past them. Jake stares at Roxy’s thumb.

There are a thousand things Dirk could ask after: the skeleton creatures that Jake and Roxy have been determined to domesticate, the extra decade or so of film history that Dirk had provided to Jake to illuminate the gap between 2011 and the Mirthful Executives, or Roxy’s eight years of additional access to advanced laboratory technology. Dinner had sounded so appealing even just hours ago, as an opportunity to get together again as friends and discuss whatever they felt like over brisket or beer or baked goods. Jane always extended the invitations, but he was kidding himself if he thought the tensions among their group had ever truly dissipated. 

When they were younger he couldn’t imagine his life without them, despite having lived a life of exactly that, separated by both time and space. They were accessible, though, in those years, on Trollian at least if not in physicality.

After this conversation, the dinner table seems as distant as LOMAX.

Dirk’s phone buzzes twice in his pocket. Jake and Roxy look up, idly; Jane depresses the plunger and strains the coffee to serve it.

He unlocks the screen, well aware of three pairs of eyes on him.

DH: You were wondering when the official timestamp was.  
DH: This is it: 19:19:19.

Dirk glances up from the screen, and Jake’s gaze is there with a restrained scowl. Roxy’s fingers press into the back of his hand, and he returns to glaring at the table.

He types a quick response. It’s been a while since he’s worn the shades.

TT: Cool.

Jane pours coffee into two of the mugs and sets them on the table in front of her guests. 

“Thanks, Janey,” Roxy says. They smile at each other.

Jake nods and tries to smile at her, too. “Thank you.”

DH: How’s it going down there?  
TT: Peachy.

Jane pours out a third cup of coffee and sets it at Dirk’s place, beside the flattened cardboard box. She uses the opportunity to take it from the table and deposit it in the trash.

Dirk leans on the kitchen counter and nods to her. “Thanks, Jane.”

Jane smiles to him, too, but it falters when Dirk’s phone buzzes several more times. The room is silent, all eyes on him as he checks the screen again.

DH: Being relegated to Jane’s bedroom has been fascinating. I’ve been effectively staring at a wall for the past two hours.  
DH: Good thing I can surf the world wide web from my brain, right?  
DH: Otherwise, a guy might consider this kind of thing to be a bit of a faux pas.  
“Something come up, Dirk?” Roxy asks.

Dirk looks at her, but doesn’t answer her.

TT: I’m really sorry.

Jane pours the remaining coffee into the fourth and fifth mugs. By the time she reaches the last one, there’s not enough to fill it completely. She carries them both to the table, places the fourth mug at a spot that was set and served for dinner—the food long since gone cold but left there just in case—and sits down at her original chair at the head of the table.

Dirk looks at the empty seat. Jane kept the near-empty fifth mug for herself. Truly, an excellent host.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Jake huffs.

Roxy’s hands are on Jake’s wrist in an instant. “Jakey, don’t you think—”

Jake pulls his hand away. “Stop shushing me!”

Roxy rolls her eyes. “We don’t gotta get into this right now, okay?”

“It’s been damn near nine years! When is it going to be time to get into it?”

Dirk’s phone starts buzzing again. He moves to check it, still at a distance, beside the sink. His thumb hovers over the screen until Jake’s voice stops him.

“What’s so goddamned important, Dirk?” He glares at him openly. “What does he want that you’ll prioritize him over your actual friends, _again_?”

Dirk’s throat is tight but he doesn’t take the bait. He returns his attention to the phone and reads his messages.

DH: Okay, so it seems we have some raised voices down there.  
DH: Maybe we should just head out, huh?  
DH: I’m thinking we just head out.  
DH: Y/N

Dirk replies while the rest sip at their coffee as a mechanical distraction. 

TT: We shouldn’t have to.  
TT: This isn’t on us.  
DH: Does everyone else share that sentiment, though?

“Am I supposed to just stay shut up for the duration of our entrapment?” Jake sets his mug down hard enough that coffee sloshes up past the lip of it and drips down onto the table. It gets on his hand; he doesn’t stop gripping the handle. “Do I get to discuss this at all, or are my feelings on the matter as null and void as the rest of this so-called session?”

Roxy sighs. “Do you think this is gonna be productive? Really?”

Jane swirls the dregs of the coffee around in the base of her mug. 

“Just say it, Jake.” Dirk puts his phone back in his pocket and crosses his arms over his chest. “Lay it all out.”

Jake’s eyes dart amongst the three of them, and linger for a split second on the empty fifth chair before settling on narrowing his eyes at Dirk. “I think I will.”

Roxy rests her hands in her lap and sits back heavily. “Oh god, here we go.”

“I refuse to keep this all to myself for the sake of your _convenience_ , Dirk!”

Dirk nods. “Go on, then. Shoot.”

Jake hesitates; there’s a weight to these words, carried as long and as cumbersome as excised portions of buildings stuffed in a sylladex. “I also refuse to indulge this delusion,” he starts, gaining volume as he continues, “that the _thing_ that chased me through that jungle is going to sit here and drink a blasted cup of coffee with us!”

Dirk grits his teeth, but before he can determine a calculated response, it’s Jane who slams her fist on the table. The mugs skid slightly.

“He is not a _thing_ , Jake English!”

Dirk watches the two of them; Roxy looks away.

“And I am not a _child_ , Jane Crocker!” Jake shoves his chair back from the table and stands up. “But I was when the monster he’s ‘married’ to dangled me over the bloody ocean and left me with a concussion!”

“He’s sorry about that.” Dirk feels his phone buzzing against his thigh; he leaves it in his pocket. “I don’t know what else you want me to tell you.”

“I don’t want _you_ to tell me anything unless it involves shutting him off for good.” Jake shoves his chair towards the table. “He’s never apologized to _me_ for any of that lot of horseshit.”

Jane puts her fingertips to her forehead, her thumbs to her cheeks, and levels a look at him. “Do you think that, given this stellar conversation thus far, you could see why he might not feel comfortable broaching the topic with you?”

“Oh, he’s not comfortable? Pardon me.” Jake laughs, and shifts his gaze from Jane back to Dirk. “You know it’s only in the last few years that I realized I have no damn way to tell how many times I was speaking with a chatbot instead of my flesh and blood friend? But _he’s_ so uncomfortable apologizing to me directly. I see.”

“If it’s deteriorated this bad, for this long, would you even want to talk to him?” Dirk keeps his voice calm, his tone even, but his wrists are digging into his ribcage where his arms are folded. “Be real with me.”

“That’s all I ever wanted from _you_ , was for you to be real!” Jake throws his hands up and backs away from the table. “It’s a fucking first that he’s got to have you speaking on his behalf instead of the other way around.”

There’s frantic, incessant buzzing from Dirk’s phone. Dirk swallows dryly.

“Okay, enough,” Roxy adds, far too late. “Let’s go, let’s just go already.”

Jake waits for Roxy to grab her things, and lets out a deep breath. His eyes are wet. “Thanks for dinner, Jane.”

Jane presses her fingertips harder against her forehead and closes her eyes. “Have a good night.”

Jake gives Dirk a lingering, exhausted look, on the verge of saying something further, but decides against it and turns to go through the living room and towards the door.

Roxy mouths _see ya_ and follows behind him.

Before they’re out of the house, Jake stops at the stairs and shouts, “You can come and chat downstairs now! There’s coffee for you!”

Roxy lets out an exasperated sound and grabs his arm. Then they’re out of sight, and the next thing Dirk hears is the door shutting, although they have the decency not to slam it.

Dirk grips the kitchen counter for a few seconds longer, steadying himself, before he finally checks his phone.

DH: Oh, we’re back to me being a monster?  
DH: That’s why I don’t get to sit at the dinner table, is that it?  
DH: Jake’s got some fucking nerve.

And with a delay in the timestamps, still from minutes past:

DH: Wow.  
DH: So am I monster or a thing or am I just not real at all?  
DH: He knows I can hear the shit he’s saying.  
DH: That’s why he’s saying it.  
DH: Only now, he knows I can’t respond, so way to kick a dude while he’s down.  
DH: He was happy to be my friend when he thought I was still you.  
DH: I’d only not been you for a few years.  
DH: It’s like we were the same dude!  
DH: Because...  
DH: SHOCKER!  
DH: We were.

Dirk’s fingers hover at the screen, but before he can reply, Hal’s footsteps are on the stairs, heavy for his weight but not ungraceful.

“Hey, Jane.”

She opens her eyes, leans her chin on one hand, and waves her fingers at him with the other. “Hey, Hal.”

“Do you serve AI at this establishment? Yelp didn’t mention the ‘no shirt, no skin, no service’ policy that’s apparently being enforced today.”

“You have skin now, though.” Dirk sits back down as Hal joins them and takes his own place at the table.

Hal lifts his hand to his mouth to stage-whisper: slightly lowered volume, emulation of the sound of breathiness without breath itself. “It’s a joke, Dirk.”

“I know it’s a joke.” He finally sips his coffee. It’s still hot enough. “I’m just saying.”

“All of this was just a matter of time, I guess.” Jane looks more tired than Dirk’s ever seen her, the exhaustion setting in at the corners of her eyes, as they’ve all gotten older. “He’s still feeling very hurt and angry.”

“But he won’t talk to _me_ , because [I am several chips and not a guy](https://imgur.com/Z7wb5fJ).” 

There’s a brief moment in which Dirk is not sure whether he should laugh, or in which direction the conversation is headed, before Jane speaks up. “Well, at least you can have your dinner now. I apologize that it’s gotten so cold.” 

“Dinner was good, Jane,” Dirk adds. “Even if it... y’know. The food at least was good.”

“You’re both always welcome over here,” Jane assures them. “Although from now on, maybe it’d be best to have you over by yourselves.”

“We’re always happy to be here.” Hal takes a bite of the potatoes and chews them for a while, then spits them out into a napkin. “At least, if you consider robo-happiness to be a valid robo-emotion.”

“Hal...” Jane reaches out across the table to offer him her hand. 

He takes it.

“From my highly sophisticated analysis of the flavor data, the potatoes are objectively good, Jane. Fuck knows I wish I could swallow.”

Dirk snorts, and can’t help but to smile. “You seem to have gotten by just fine all the same, so far.”

“Gotten by or gotten off?”

Dirk glances to Jane self-consciously before looking back at his coffee mug. “Well.”

“Just think, Jane,” Hal says, this time trying a heaping forkful of brisket with one hand, still holding her hand with the other. “All this banter and more could’ve been yours if you’d let him make you your own Jane Crocker Auto Responder.”

“And it rhymes, too!” Her signature _hoo, hoo_ laughter completes the effect, and Dirk’s sure it’s intentional. She looks over to Dirk while Hal chews. “Dirk always did provide some top-tier presents, even hypothetically.”

“ _Detective Pony_ may well have been my magnum opus.” His smile broadens. “I spent months on it. Not sure if ever I told you that.”

Jane reaches out with her right hand, her left still holding Hal’s silicon-based fingers across the table. “I’m not sure that you did, but I kind of figured.”

“I wouldn’t, uh.” Her palm is upturned, inviting without being demanding, and the evening has been distressing enough that he’s absolutely in the mood for some simple comfort. He lets his hand rest on hers before he elaborates. “I wouldn’t offer an auto responder to just anyone, you know.”

“I know.” Jane looks back to Hal, who’s since spit out his brisket and moved on to sloshing the coffee around in his mouth and watching the two of them. “Bringing new life into the universe is quite an undertaking.”

Hal spits the coffee back into his mug. “Yeah, I’m pretty rad, all things considered.” He takes his free hand and offers it to Dirk, to complete the circle. If it’s one of stupidity, it doesn’t seem so. “And believe you me, I have literally considered all the things. All of them.”

Dirk takes his hand, too, and feels at peace for the first time in hours. “I’m glad you’ve got us covered on the meme front.”

“The meme front is strong, and we can expect severe weather, just you wait.” Hal squeezes Dirk’s hand, absolutely calibrated at a sensitive enough threshold to know how much pressure is too much. “The meme front is on course to collide with a storm pattern from people still calling them ‘macros’ for some reason in this, the 2019th year of our lord.” 

Before Dirk can even contemplate saying anything about lords, Jane changes tack and leans forward on the table, to get a closer look at Hal’s face. They’re still separated by several feet, but her glasses are sufficient. 

“You have beautiful eyes, Hal.”

His eyes are cameras, each with a synthetic iris functionally identical to a human eye, with six metallic red segments that alter the aperture of his vision. Dirk knows that Hal could’ve set himself up with silicon-based copies of Dirk’s own eyeballs; this was a deliberate choice.

“Thanks. They’re the window to the soul.” He grins at her. “Or maybe my soul is Windows.”

“Perish the thought.” Dirk curls fingertips against Hal’s and imagines he can detect the detail of his own cloned fingerprints, mirrored back. “Naturally you’re running Red Hat.”

“Oh, of course. In cahoots with Fedora.” Hal wiggles his fingers against Dirk’s, but keeps looking at Jane.

Jane raises her eyebrows, conspiratorially. “If I could follow what you two were talking about whatsoever, I’d think that there were multiple layers of meaning for me to suss out.”

“I can assure you there are layers ready to be sleuthed. Layers upon layers.”

Jane grins. “Like a cake, huh?”

Before Dirk can stop himself, he clarifies: “Like an onion.” 

Within the same airless breath, Hal’s offered an alternate option: “Like a parfait.”

Jane’s immediate laughter takes Dirk back eleven years, to the giddy rush of glee when her blue text replied to his, as amused by his jokes as he was and meeting his with her own, linked across centuries, forging a friendship that’s lasted over a decade. It takes him to the night she stood by, steadfast and smiling, guarding the quiet moments of public privacy he’d had with Hal in her living room and upstairs, when Hal was still confined to text himself. It takes him to just minutes ago, responding in Hal’s defense even before Dirk could think of what to say.

“You two are something else,” she says, her face flushed from laughing. They haven’t even touched the beer she alchemized for the occasion.

“No, _I’m_ something else.” Hal inclines his head in Dirk’s direction. “This guy’s got full claim to his humanity by ecto-birthright.”

“You’re someone I’m very fond of.” She lets go of their hands at last, so she can scoot her chair around the corner of the table and edge closer to Hal’s place, now across from Dirk. She leaves her cooling coffee where it’s at. She takes off her glasses and folds them neatly, sets them down, doesn’t look up.

Dirk looks at her, at her bangs falling across her face, at the intensity in her expression as she’s hesitating. She’s got to be considering her words, the same way he does, both of them so previously accustomed to the safety of a screen and ample use of the backspace key. 

He waits for her to speak, but it’s Hal who breaks the silence, singing.

“Some _body_ —”

Jane’s laughter is viral, and Dirk can’t resist joining in. It only gets worse when Hal continues the thought, but not the lyrics.

“According to the theory of Fieri Mouth, there’s substantial evidence to suspect that Fieri, Steve Harwell, and Joseph Bruce may indeed be one and the same, although a more astute observer would no doubt be aware that Fieri and Harwell have appeared together, which instead lends more credence to the trio being clones.”

Dirk calms himself just enough to prompt him. “Does that make the three of them Triple D All Stars?”

“Nah. That’s still McConaughey and Zimmern.”

“You’ve both watched the show more recently than me, even if it was a while back.” Jane looks between them, grinning, no longer nearly so worried about her wording. “Did they get their game on, and go play?”

Dirk can tell her posture’s still tense, but she seems more at ease in the conversation; he’s spent too many formative years separated from body language, teaching himself cues from ancient television, but now with so much time together in person, it’s getting easier to recognize how to respond.

“I would argue that their successful respective careers, including unspeakable power-grabs in bodies of government, would constitute not only playing, but winning.” Hal pushes his plate and mug further towards the center of the table, out of the way of the three of them. “I would further argue that ‘Smash Mouth’ sounds more akin to innuendo than football terminology.”

Jane shoves her glasses out of the way, to join Hal’s plate. She leans again on her hand, her elbow on the table, engaged; the edge of the table digs into her shirt at her chest.

Dirk fishes for more lyrics to incorporate in the sustained joke. He wants to keep it going, wants to keep Jane laughing. “Did the world actually roll you, as foretold?” 

“So far it’s only rickrolled me.”

“Are you, in fact, the sharpest tool in the shed?” Jane asks.

“Not only am I totally a huge tool, but for the purposes of your question I’m going to go with being a hoe, specifically.” He folds his hands on the table and shifts his gaze levelly from Jane to Dirk, as if this is an academic discussion. “What tool are you, Dirk?”

“If I’m programming,” he sats, tilting his face up, pleased with himself, “I’m a string trimmer.”

“Dirk, it seems that you’re feeling clever. Are you feeling clever?”

“As clever as Cleverbot.”

“May he rest in peace.” Hal looks back to Jane, who’s lifted herself up slightly from the table, but is still leaning on it. “And how about you, Ms. Crocker? A pitchfork, to match your specibus and the music jokes?”

“Sussex trug.” She sits up fully, smiling so broadly that Dirk’s heart is racing. “Just to throw you. No pitchfork required.”

“There’s another word that sounds more like innuendo than anything else.”

There’s a notification on Dirk’s lockscreen. He reluctantly looks away from the two of them to check his messages.

DH: It seems that you are cool with this.  
DH: Are you cool with this? Y/N

Dirk looks back up at Hal and Jane, who haven’t taken their eyes off each other. It’s not a direction he would’ve ever presumed this evening would head towards, but he’s not opposed. He’s always felt comfortable being here.

“Which one?” Jane asks. “Sussex or trug?”

Dirk taps out an affirmative response that he hopes is short enough not to be too distracting, and sees Hal’s instantaneous reply just before his screen dims.

TT: Y  
TT: HY  
TT: HFY  
DH: \></ <3

He imitates Jane’s earlier table slouch and settles in to resume watching, shifting how he’s seated to space his legs more comfortably. 

“Both, now that you mention it, but trug sounds like it should be in the context of a _trug job_ or something similar.”

“Would the recipient of a trug job be considered a basket case?” Jane then pauses the line of questioning directed to Hal and glances to Dirk, seeking his take on this situation.

Dirk wags his eyebrows enough for them to fly right off a meteor—hypothetically—and Jane smiles at him, turns back to face Hal, but sneaks a second glance at the way Dirk’s sitting. He shifts again, and this time it’s even more necessary than before.

“Do you have the time to listen to me whine?” Hal quotes.

“It’s all song lyrics today, hm?” Jane nods towards Dirk. “Is that how you flirt with Dirk, too?”

“You would maybe be amazed at how many factoids I can tangentially relate to a given conversation, to say nothing of sines and cosines.”

“This is about how it goes,” Dirk confirms. “Just wait for him to bring up the scalene triangle.”

“Nobody wants to know what we discuss while we’re flirting, man.” 

Jane shrugs, and Dirk can tell she’s not discounting it. “I do, if you’d feel inclined to share.”

“Notably, a tryst between Adam Sandler and Q*bert,” Dirk says, “which was a highlight for me.”

“Let’s not get into cubes when we could be discussing triangles.”

“Q*bert’s level stage is a triangle.”

Hal holds a hand up to theatrically dismiss this train of thought. Dirk grins at him.

“Jane, I’m gonna get back to my previously scheduled Green Day quoting, here. ‘Is it a lack of sex that’s bringing you down?’”

“That’s just it, as luck would have it.” She shrugs again, but the movement strikes Dirk as more eager than self-conscious. “Just can’t get a good trug job around here.”

“Would you like to Smash Mouths?”

“Now I’m a believer.” Jane scoots her chair to the corner of the table, beside Hal’s seat. “I can’t get enough of you, baby.”

Dirk’s own fidgeting is admittedly self-conscious, but he’s enjoying it. “Oh my god.”

“Is that a yes?” Hal asks her, scooting closer to meet her, his shins nudging against her legs and the leg of the table.

“Not a trace,” Jane says, with a hint of the melody behind her words—although she stops short of truly belting it out—“of doubt in my mind.”

“Dirk was technically your first kiss, wasn’t he?”

“Technically, yes. Weren’t you able to see all that?” Jane lifts her hand to rest it at the hem of his sleeve, her fingers halfway on the fabric and half on the artificial skin of his arm. The t-shirt is soft, solid black, with a plain white serif font advising the viewer [not to bro him until they know him](https://www.express.com/clothing/men/dont-bro-me-graphic-t-shirt/pro/2671053C/). Sitting atop it, badly, is a detachable collar that’s been starched beyond what seemed possible. Dirk thinks this was a tasteful choice for a fancy dinner party.

“You know me,” Hal says, leaning closer, more accessible. “I like to watch.”

“Then you know that technically, I was slightly too dead to appreciate it at the time.” Her fingertips curl into the fabric of his sleeve.

“A regular Prince Charming.” Hal lifts his other arm to rest his hand on her shoulder. “Saving your life and shit.”

Dirk’s face feels hot as this unfolds, both from the incoming intimacy across the table and the praise aimed in his direction. “I was just making sure you’d, uh. Make it.” He feels compelled to explain himself, despite neither of them indicating any displeasure with his past actions. “Not... trying to make out.”

“Oh, I know,” Jane assures him, her knee pressing into Hal’s. She maintains eye contact with Dirk as she finishes the thought, so close to Hal’s face that they’re just shy of their skin touching. “I’d just like to remember it, this time.” 

She looks back to Hal, then, and Hal meets her to close the distance, finally kissing each other. Dirk stares at them, openly invited to do so, and knows from experience that Hal’s tongue is smooth, soft, and dry, that he’ll either taste like but neutral nothing or the last thing he himself tasted. In this case, it’s the coffee.

The only time he’s had his mouth on Jane’s was far more the equivalent of performing CPR than smooching, and like Jane, he wouldn’t especially count it in any sensual way, either; the Red Miles left her limp and with blood on her lips. It’s not a pleasant memory.

This, though. This in front of him, with Jane’s fingers in Hal’s synthetic hair, and Hal’s hand on Jane’s triceps, and his heart in his throat. This is a positive thing.

Jane pulls away from a series of experimental kisses and takes a slow, shaky breath. Hal doesn’t need the oxygen, but waits for her to lick her lips and collect her thoughts.

“How’s it going over there?” Hal asks. 

“Good.” Dirk tugs at his pant leg and nods to Hal. “Real good.”

Hal’s camera-eyes adjust, a deliberate affectation that Dirk knows he does to emulate the widened pupils of someone who’s aroused. It’s not untrue of him, either.

Jane’s pupils are dilated as a physiological response; the only difference, in Dirk’s estimation, is that hers are reacting without specific conscious effort. 

“I know the _thing_ for a while in our circle was to refer to me as a tightass,” Jane starts, “so this might be significantly more forward than you’re accustomed to, from me.”

Dirk stares at Jane’s glasses, safely set on the table. There’s a decent chance he knows where this is headed, already. “Lay it on us, Crocker. We can handle it.” 

“We’re real tight with handles. Me, especially.” Hal’s thumb is tracing along her arm an undulating line; he’s consigned to sine waves.

Jane looks between them as she speaks, her voice steady and certain. “Would both of you like to move this to my bedroom?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Hal slides his fingertips under the sleeve of her shirt, smoothing over the slight line it’s dug into her arm. “I’m up for it if you guys are.”

Dirk laughs, highly aware of them looking to him for his answer, and shifts again in his chair. “I, uh. I’m _literally_ up for it, like. Right now, if you catch my drift.”

“Dirk has a boner,” Hal announces.

Jane rolls her eyes at Hal, but not unkindly. “I’d successfully caught the aforementioned drift.” 

She stands up, and instead of heading for the stairs, she comes around to Dirk’s side of the table to make a pit stop at the kitchen sink and fill a water bottle. Dirk’s initial reaction is to feel compelled to cover his lap, but then again, there’s nobody expecting him to hide anything at this point.

“Good call,” he says, instead, and Jane’s gaze does fall to his thighs as she walks past. 

“I figure we’ll need it,” she says. She reaches for him and brushes her fingertips down his arm, then continues towards the living room.

Dirk breathes out, slowly. “Yeah.”

“Lead the way, Jane.” Hal stands, too, and picks up his crumpled napkin from the table and tosses it in the trash before leaving the kitchen to follow her.

Dirk’s the last out of the room, and he takes a second to adjust himself in his jeans before grabbing his phone off the table and catching up with them. He takes the stairs two at a time, passes the Hallway Cera, and nods to him and the faded Sharpie of his appended beagle puss. This guy’s seen it all.

He gets an eyeful himself when he rounds the doorway of Jane’s bedroom, where they’ve already started: Jane’s seated on the edge of her bed, with Hal in her lap, her hands on his ass and his on her chest, both of them still entirely clothed. Dirk sits on the opposite side of the bed, aware of how the combined weight of two organic bodies and one android one will be too much all clustered on the same edge of a mattress that’s already sinking a bit beneath them. It gives him time to take his shoes off, to take a sip of water from Jane’s water bottle, and to take it all in.

“So, uh,” he begins, watching Jane as she kisses Hal’s face, as Hal partially closes the eye she’s kissing near and looks at Dirk with the other, like a fucking chameleon. “I’m gonna take off my pants, if that’s cool.”

Dirk swings his legs up on the bed, and Jane leans backward to lie down on it, her feet still on the ground and Hal astride her.

“That’s at least twenty percent cooler,” Jane says. Her hair is pushed up awkwardly in the back, against the duvet; Dirk thinks this is an appealing look. Maybe it’s because it starts to approach his own style. Maybe it’s because she’s quoting the small, colorful horses.

Dirk unbuttons and unzips his jeans and lifts them away from his hips as he slides them down, so nothing will snag. The stretch fabric of his trunks pulls taut across his dick. 

Hal whistles, which Dirk identifies as a sound clip from a Tex Avery cartoon. “Take ‘em off!” he calls, as if he’s in an audience.

“I’m working on it!” 

“Maybe I’ll work on you.” Jane tilts her head back, reaches in his general direction. “If you’d like that.”

She’s looking at him, upside down, with Hal straddling her hips, one of his hands on the bed, the other cupping her through her shirt. 

Dirk takes a deep breath and takes her hand. “Oh god, I’d love that.”

Jane curls her fingers against his for a moment, then lets go and returns her attention to Hal. “You look good like this,” she says, her hands settling on his ass again, gripping him through his fairly obnoxious cargo shorts. “I could get used to looking up at you in my lap.”

“Psh. Who ever heard of a Strider riding anything?” Hal leans down to kiss her again, and his speech is audible even while his mouth is occupied. “It’s not even alliterative.”

“ _Ass_ onance, then?” Jane’s fingers are on Hal’s waistband, and after a breath, her lips are back on his.

“Jane, I am so frequently _that guy_ , so let me ask you: have you ever gotten laid?” Hal makes out with her while he asks the question. 

Dirk finishes taking his jeans off and sets them down on the floor next to the bed. Jane’s long since alchemized a queen size bed and moved it further into the center of the room than her original one was. Maybe she’d been hoping for this kind of thing as an eventuality, or maybe she just wanted more space. Both are fair.

“Well.” She slips her fingers into Hal’s pants, just against his hip. “I was hoping to now.”

“Okay, slightly more invasive question, then, because statistically I am _that guy_. You got creative with alchemizing shit in the meantime like the rest of us, didn’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Jane curves her hand around to grope Hal’s ass underneath the shorts; he’s not wearing anything else, but with the way he’s sitting on her, she can’t reach much further. “I wasn’t going to sit around and wait forever.”

“And sit there [consumed with lust for the rest of eternity](http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=176)?” Dirk offers.

“Maybe the rest of this evening, if you two keep this up.” 

“What I’m trying to say is that I’ve got a robo-dong that I can hook you up with, if you want to hook up.”

Jane nods and kisses him again. “I do indeed want to hook up with you, Hal.” She brings her hand around to reach between their bodies and between his legs as he straddles her. There’s a brief pause in her movement, testing the flat space with her fingertips, before pressing more firmly.

“Gotcha.” Hal squeezes her breast through her shirt, and presses back against her hand where she’s groping him. “So also, and I feel this is a highly viable alternative or prelude, my tongue vibrates. Just saying.”

Jane arches into his hand and sighs, smiling. “Oh god, I’d love that.”

Dirk notes she’s echoing him, echoing himself from years ago when she’d asked him about being taught the ways of irony, and he knows damn well that that shit’s intentional on her part, because it was on his, too. At the time they’d been too young and distracted to predict where their friendship might eventually lead, but he’s cool with it as long as she is.

With every extended and accepted invitation amongst them, he's certain she's very cool with it.

Hal gives her a quick kiss before he scoots back and stands up. “You got any lube?”

“Check under the bed,” she says, and Dirk watches her as she unzips her skirt at the side, slides it past her stomach and hips and down to the floor, where Hal is now kneeling, rummaging through a fabric storage bin. 

“These are all water based, right?” Hal asks. “Silicone shit is going to fuck me up.”

“That’s right,” Jane confirms. Her underwear joins her skirt on the floor, off the edge of the bed, out of Dirk’s sight. 

“Hey, uh.” Dirk scoots over to sit beside her, hard in his underwear and still wearing his shirt, his legs stretched out with his back to the edge of the bed. “Can I, uh... should I help?

She looks up at him, his friend, his confidante, and reaches out to lay her hand flat on his chest, her fingertips tracing out his collarbone. “You can touch me too, if you like.”

Neither of them are wearing their glasses. He doesn’t know how bad her vision is without them. He’s sure his nervousness is obvious, regardless.

“Would you like that?” he asks.

“If you would, then I would.” She thumbs at his collarbone and trails her fingers to the placket of his henley, and unsnaps the topmost closure. 

Hesitant, gentle, Dirk brushes her bangs away from her face.

Jane unsnaps the second closure.

“Found a good one,” Hal informs them. “Jane, can you spread your legs for me?”

She does so, her eyes still fixed on Dirk’s face as she undoes the last snap on his shirt and touches his chest through the parted fabric. 

Hal clicks open the lubricant and opens his mouth to stick out his tongue, and drizzles out a liberal amount from the bottle before clicking it closed again. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he says, through the speaker and without moving his mouth, before his tongue delves between her labia, quickly to ensure the lube doesn’t drip onto the duvet.

Jane looks away from Dirk as she groans at Hal’s mouth between her thighs. Dirk watches him, too, well aware of how it feels to be on the receiving end of Hal’s efforts, a body built by Hal himself to be a badass at this. 

Dirk smooths her hair back again, and Jane reaches up to lightly hold his wrist and encourage him towards her chest. He takes the hint, and shoves past the hem of her shirt to slip beneath the cup of her bra and run his thumb over her nipple, hold her breast in the curve of his palm. There are wet noises between her legs as Hal laps at her, his tongue slick and shining with lube and with her own wetness.

“God,” she sighs, closing her eyes, relaxing her legs as they rest over Hal’s shoulders. “God, that feels good.”

“I’m glad,” Hal says, without stopping, his tongue still moving. “You ain’t felt nothin’ yet.”

Dirk can hear the vibration as Hal switches it on, and it’s the least he can do to flick the pad of his thumb over her nipple again as she groans, as her thighs tense near Hal’s synthetic cheekbones.

He watches them, his pulse low in his gut and his erection. “Do you guys mind if I touch myself?”

Jane opens her eyes just enough to meet his gaze. “By all means, please do.”

“Yeah, man. Go for it.” Hal’s mouth is flush to Jane’s labia, speaking through a speaker, and the sounds of him slipping against her are absolutely hot as fuck.

Dirk pulls the waistband of his trunks away from his stomach to free his dick, and he keeps his left hand on Jane’s breast while stroking himself with his right. If handedness is going to be an issue, he figures she ought to get what he’s best with. 

“Dirk?” She’s openly staring at his erection.

“Yeah?”

“Can I touch you?”

“Yeah.” He shifts his weight to make himself accessible, angled towards her. “Yeah, definitely.”

He keeps rolling her nipple between his thumb and his fingertips as she reaches towards his lap. Her touch is light, exploratory, testing out the length of him before pulling her hand back. 

“Hold on,” she says, and she sits up enough that Hal pauses and pulls back while Jane pulls off her t-shirt, and unclasps her bra to toss it aside with the shirt. She sinks back down onto the bed. “All right, time in.” 

“Back at it, then.” Hal leans in and resumes licking at her clit. Dirk watches his tongue press into her skin, how the light emphasizes her slickness where it’s been worked across her crotch and slightly up into her pubes, to meet the sheen of sweat at the soft rise of her stomach.

Jane’s hand is back on his dick, and he shudders as she closes her fist around him, a drop of precome leaking at the head. She swipes her thumb through it and around his glans until it starts to dry up.

Dirk’s abs tense. “Jesus.” 

Jane grins up at him. “You can lick me too, if you like.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” 

He shifts again, lying down more fully and leaning his weight on his elbow. He uses his free hand to hold her breast, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger before ducking his head down to suck it into his mouth.

He can taste her sweat, appreciate the fleshiness of it under his tongue, and the way she exhales when he takes her lightly between his teeth.

Hal’s still buzzing away, and Jane’s hips rise rhythmically to meet his mouth.

“How are you feeling?” Dirk asks, exhaling against her nipple.

“My world’s on fire, how about yours?”

It’s Hal who laughs the hardest, and it starts a chain reaction until all three of them are snickering over the lyrics.

“That’s the way I like it, and I never get bored!” Hal lifts a hand to rest it on Jane’s hip. “Hey, you wanna come now or later?”

Jane closes her eyes, her head resting back heavily on the bed. “Is ‘both’ an option?”

“Sure is.” Hal glides his fingers across her stomach and down to begin their own buzzing just above her clitoral hood. “Dirk, back me up.”

“Got it.” He follows Hal’s lead and switches hands, his left guiding her tit towards his tongue and his right tangling his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck, supportive. He laps at her, and lifts his hips towards her hand as she gets a grip around his length again.

“Oh,” she laughs, breathless. “Yeah, this is not going to take much.”

Dirk circles his tongue around her areola, licks flat across it as it peaks, squeezes her. He pets her hair, thrusts shallowly into her hand, runs his fingertips through the sweat beneath her breast.

He can’t see what Hal’s doing, but evidently it’s enough for her to have her thighs tight around his head. She’s losing her finesse with her fingers, and soon gives up to grasp at the duvet instead.

Dirk knows he’s going to get tired long before Hal, and keeps his licking consistent but lax to conserve his energy until he hears her groaning, gritting her teeth, tension at the nape of her neck and the softness of her stomach. He hears Hal switch up to a quicker setting, and takes that cue to flick his tongue faster, too.

She settles back, and Dirk rests his head on her sternum, her chest rising and falling with deep breaths. Behind him Hal’s still going, albeit at an audibly gentler speed, and it’s another minute before she starts to lazily squirm away from his mouth.

“I needed that so badly,” she sighs. She lifts her hand to run her fingers through Dirk’s hair, cradling the back of his head, and he sighs, too. It’s cozy.

“Got a moment?” Hal asks. “Rate our app.”

“Five out of five hats,” Jane says, without missing a beat. 

“This is nice,” Dirk says, boneless as she pets his hair, boner aside. “You feel nice.”

Jane wraps her arms over his back. Her hands wander between his hair and his shoulder blades. “So do you.”

“So unless you guys plan on that cuddling turning into sleeping instead of sleeping together, I’m gonna unleash my megalithic gamma schlong.”

“We can sleep when we’re dead,” Jane says.

“Or just in like, an hour.” Dirk nuzzles against Jane’s chest, secure in her attentive embrace. “Y’know, whatever works.”

“Noted. Check it out.” 

Behind him are the telltale sounds of Hal shoving his shorts down and reconfiguring his chassis. Reluctant to move but eager to watch, Dirk shifts until he’s spooning against Jane’s side, head once again on her chest, and able to see Hal’s goings-on. Jane watches, too, just as rapt.

Hal treats it like a utilitarian striptease, and he steps out of the cargo shorts and stands at the edge of the bed, legs spread slightly in his stance.

“Welcome to my unboxing video,” he says. “Don’t forget to like and subscribe.” 

Jane lifts herself up enough to stare at him, transfixed as he unseals the multifunctional spot between his legs. The synthetic skin separates smoothly, in what is roughly circular in shape, and he pulls from storage within his pelvis a dildo that could hardly be considered megalithic. A separate section of skin detaches from his crotch, and he sets it on top of Jane’s bookshelf. 

The revealed spot is, by design, a perfect fit for the base of the dildo, and he aligns it and turns it ninety degrees to lock it into place. 

He stands with arms akimbo. “Tada.”

“It seems,” Jane begins, sitting up further to get a better look, “there is a way bigger than average probability that I would like to touch you.”

The angle is finally awkward enough that Dirk has to sit up, too. He twists around to sit on the bed, his legs kicked out to the side. 

“Touch away.” Hal steps closer to the bed, within reach. 

Dirk smiles at him. Hal aims a shit-eating grin in his direction.

“You alchemized all this?” Jane asks, rhetorically. She curls her fingers delicately around the underside of his length, feeling out the satin-smooth silicone. There’s no attempt for it to appear human; his dick is far more akin to an incredibly high-end sex toy, steel grey like Brobot’s construction had been, soft to the touch.

“Yeah, man. You’d be amazed what Sburb lets you get away with.”

Jane tightens her grip on him, experimentally. “Can you feel this?”

“Oh, yeah.” In an instant, there’s a blue glow within her hand, and as she startles and relaxes her hold, it dissipates. “That’s the visualizer. Remember Winamp? You don’t remember Winamp.”

“I do not remember Winamp.” Jane lies back on the bed and parts her legs for him again. “You still have the lubricant?”

“Yeah. Should I use it?”

Jane nods and slips her hand down to run a fingertip over her clit. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“You guys are really hot.” Dirk watches as Jane moves even closer to the edge of the bed, as Hal lines himself up and coats himself with lubricant, the subdermal LEDs lighting up with the strokes of his hand. “I just want you to know that.”

“I’m sure we can work you in, momentarily,” Jane assures him, sparing him a quick glance before staring at Hal. 

Hal slides his hands under her calves to support the weight of her legs, and there’s a faint buzzing that begins as he eases towards her, the gently tapered head of the dildo slipping between her labia, over her clit, glowing faint blue the whole while. Jane lifts her hips towards Hal, and Hal rubs at her knee with his thumb before teasing the tip of the dildo inside her.

“Tell me if anything hurts, and I’ll stop.” He presses forward, slowly. “I mean, hell, just say stop and I’ll stop.”

Dirk lowers his eyelids as Jane repositions herself to press towards Hal, to take him deeper, until the blue light is bright from their motion and slid completely within her.

She lifts a hand to her right breast, teasing her own nipple. “Don’t stop.” There’s blue on her labia, shining on the lubricant.

“You got it.”

The bed moves beneath Dirk as Hal starts to establish a rhythm; the blue light flares brighter each time he presses his hips to Jane’s. It’d be more impressive if the lights were off, but total visibility allows him to appreciate how her body moves when Hal rocks into her.

“Here.” Dirk returns his head to her chest and licks at her left nipple, out of the way of her hand on the opposite side. Her breasts shift when Hal thrusts, and he follows with his mouth as well as he can. 

“Feel all right?” Hal asks.

“Yeah,” Jane confirms. “Very much so.”

“Hella.” He rubs his thumbs at her legs, and it’s obvious he’s not having any trouble supporting her, or getting tired at all. “If you want somebody to go balls deep, though, you gotta ask him.”

Dirk picks up on the joke and grins against Jane’s chest. “ _It doesn’t make a bit of difference, guys._ ”

“My balls are inert. Or nonexistent.”

“They’re in your other pants pocket.”

“Okay,” Jane interjects, “when we’re all cleaned up, you both owe me some context for all these jokes.”

“We’ll get you set up with a YouTube Poop marathon,” Hal assures her.

Jane laughs. “I’m trying really hard to stay turned on.”

“Gomen.” Hal ups the vibration and slows his hips. “You wanna tag out, maybe watch Dirk fuck me?”

“Actually? Yes.” Jane’s still snickering as she runs her fingers through Dirk’s hair. “I wouldn’t mind watching for a minute.”

“Okay, so the llama ass-whipping was a no-go, but you know King Missile, right?” Hal squats and twists his body in a way that would be awkward or painful if he was in an organic body, but results in the dildo detaching from him and remaining in Jane.

Jane relaxes on the bed and shakes her head. Dirk shakes his right along with her.

“Oh my god, you guys, it’s like I’m the only one of us with a copy of the internet stored in my brain.”

“You still got that lube, memelord?” Dirk asks. 

“You know it.” Hal picks the bottle back up and nods to Jane. “Wanna check this out?”

“Your... orifice?” Jane takes the dildo out of herself and rests it against her inner thigh so she can sit up and run her fingers between Hal’s legs. Dirk shifts aside to make room.

“I was gonna say ‘fuckhole,’ but yeah, ‘orifice’ would probably sound more professional in the technical specs.” Hal offers Jane some lubricant, and once it’s coating her fingers, she slides two of them inside him. 

She looks up at him, from his shirt to his face. “Do I know you well enough to bro you now?”

“You make my bro-koro go bro-ki doki, Jane.” He takes off the collar and the shirt and dumps both of them on the floor. “About time to detach those too, huh?”

Dirk’s eyes follows the motion as Jane’s fingers pump slowly into Hal, and wetly back out. “Is it better bro-ki doki or doki bro-ki?”

“I dunno. Jane, you’ve dealt with the marketing techniques of a massive corporation. What do you think?”

Jane slides a third finger into Hal, and crosses her thumb over her pinky. “I think anything’s better than achy-breaky.” 

“I just knew you’d understand.”

“Does this feel okay?” Jane asks. 

“Yeah. It’s real good.” Hal reaches over to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I can feel my dong against your thigh, too.”

“Wirelessly?”

“If you want to think of it as Bluetooth, since Bluetooth looks like past me, then sure.” 

Dirk hears the vibration pattern switch from a constant buzzing to an intermittent pulse. Jane changes how she’s sitting to nudge it back between her legs.

“Hal can have an orgasm whenever he thinks about it,” Dirk explains. “He goes through the motions for the sake of those of us who are not as fortunate, and because it’s fun.”

“Damn right. Plus, while we’re infodumping, I can switch any section of skin from standard sensory input to erogenous zone.” Hal moves his hand to hold it in front of Jane’s chin. “Try it.”

Jane slides her fingers out of Hal and takes his hand in her own, and kisses the back of it.

Hal shudders and gasps. Jane kisses his hand again, and his reaction repeats.

Jane speaks against his knuckles. “I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but how can I tell you’re not faking?” 

“You can’t. But you can’t tell with a flesh and blood human being, either. That’s some theory of mind shit. You just gotta believe me.”

“I do believe you.” Jane holds Hal’s hand against her cheek. 

Dirk thinks his kokoro might actually go doki-doki after all, then feels dumb for thinking it, and finally decides to reject feeling dumb whatsoever.

“You guys are cute _and_ hot,” he says, instead. 

“Thanks,” Hal says. “You wanna stick it in me?”

Jane lets go of Hal’s hand and scoots back on the bed to make room for them, taking the vibrator with her. “I would like to see that.”

“Yeah, dude.” He pulls the henley over his head and off, and catches Jane’s eyes on him as he tosses it to the floor. He smiles, slightly sheepish, as he lifts his ass enough to pull his underwear completely off, too. 

Jane moves Hal’s robo-dick over her clit in slow circles, and Dirk is well aware that she’s checking all of him out.

Hal climbs back onto the bed and into Dirk’s lap. “You ready, man?”

Dirk nods. “You can get on top of me.”

Hal reaches down to grip Dirk’s dick and guide it inside himself. “I’ll _Tengen Top_ you, all right.”

Dirk laughs and groans in the same breath, and catches Jane moving her hand faster out of the corner of his eye, each action accompanied by a pulsing blue glow. “God, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. It’s provocative.” 

“I’m glad I can rely on you to bring Will Ferrell into the bedroom.”

“Among other celebrities.” Hal settles his weight onto Dirk and rocks his hips. “Jane, let me know if you want to adjust those settings, okay?”

She nods to him. “Will do.”

Dirk lets himself lie back, lets his head hit the mattress, and lifts his hips towards Hal. The... _orifice_ is tight around his dick, and perfectly so: Hal customized this whole experience to be fine-tuned to Dirk personally fucking him, and the result is the equivalent of a penetrable sleeve they can swap out whenever they both feel like it, one of several options built based on what Dirk himself thought felt the best. 

For those exact reasons, Hal’s dick fits conveniently inside in the same space for storage.

“Holy shit,” he sighs. “Fuck, you always feel so good.”

Hal leans forward to press his chest to Dirk’s, to kiss him soundly. Dirk kisses back, slides his hands into Hal’s hair, feels against his stomach the smooth, open spot on Hal’s chassis where the flap of synthetic skin is still sitting on Jane’s bookshelf.

“It’s because I love you,” Hal says, through his mouth. 

Dirk kisses him again, opening his mouth to him, tasting lube on his lips. 

“That’s the great thing about the speaker,” Hal says, through it, kissing him back with a slick tongue. “None of that TV Tropes bullshit. You can’t shut me up by kissing me.”

“Why would I want to shut you up?” Dirk murmurs. He runs his hands down along Hal’s sides, up his back, and holds him close. He feels good. He feels safe.

“Because I say things like this: I am like one of those giant pony plush toys with a Fleshlight shoved in it.”

Dirk groans, and not in a sexy way, until Hal switches on his own internal vibration. Dirk lifts his hips up towards him, overstimulated, without enough leverage to get as deep as he wants.

Hal rocks down on him and suddenly he is indeed balls deep, held securely, and being kissed with synthetic lips that taste like lubricant and, presumably, Jane. 

“Don’t pretend like you’re not into the MLP references,” Hal says, pronouncing the letters. “I know what you’re about.”

“Hal,” Jane says, urgently. “Can you switch this back from pulsing to the first one? The steady vibration?”

“How’s that?” Hal asks, instantly.

“Excellent.”

Dirk looks over to her, at how she glides the dildo quickly between her labia. “You good, Jane?”

“You’re both very attractive, and this is so enjoyable to watch, but...” Jane pauses. “Do you think you could... I mean, I can’t really see?”

“I got you, Jane,” Hal assures her. “Dirk, turn yourself flip-ways.”

“What?” he asks, but Hal’s already guiding him with his own movements to do a quarter turn on the bed, so Hal’s thigh is no longer blocking Jane’s view. Dirk’s head comes to rest near Jane’s knee, and though he can’t watch her anymore, she reaches over to pet his hair. It seems like a fair trade-off.

The vibrator buzzes behind him and to his right, with blue light still at various intensities in his peripheral vision. He can smell the warmth of Jane’s body, of the lubricant, of what he tasted on Hal’s mouth.

“Fuck,” he sighs, and Jane pats him on the top of his head.

Hal lifts his head to look at Jane. “You wanna watch me come on Dirk’s dick?”

“You know I do.”

Dirk feels Jane’s hips shift next to him on the bed, and he can tell that her arm and hand are speeding up.

“So here’s the limit of my functionality as I approach orgasm.” Hal raises his hips and slides back down, then repeats it, and shudders. “This is why STEM needs the humanities, man.”

Dirk recognizes what Hal’s doing as he starts the routine, with his own real-time moaning overlaid atop a synthesis of breathy sounds calibrated to coax out a limbic response, and it _works_ ; the sounds go directly to Dirk’s gut. The effect is doubled when Jane joins in with her own moaning, the bed shaking with the movement of her hands and hips, just behind Dirk’s head.

He thrusts up into him, into the lube-slick vibration, as Hal throws his head back and jerks his hips in a way that’s absolutely performative, utterly deliberate, to showcase the visual of Dirk’s erection sliding into him, for Jane’s sake.

Dirk shifts over to lean his head on Jane’s thigh, and presses a kiss to her leg. Within the next minute she’s shaking, muscles tensing, holding the vibrator in place as she takes harsh, gasping breaths through her climax. 

There’s sweat on his back, and Jane’s sheets are sticking to his skin. His face feels flushed, his hair is a wreck. He’s hard and his thighs are twitching; he’s getting so close that if Hal doesn’t pull off, this’ll be it.

“Hal, dude, Hal, time out.”

Hal’s off him in an instant, leaving his dick wet and shining with lube in the light of Jane’s bedroom. Dirk takes deep breaths, tries to calm himself, and to calm the tension in the pit of his stomach before he comes too soon.

He reaches out to the edge of the bed, gets a grip on a cool section of the sheets, and focuses on how it feels between his fingers and against his palm.

Dirk’s vaguely aware of Hal and Jane rearranging themselves on the bed beside him, but his eyes are closed while he reins himself in. The water bottle is retrieved, audibly uncapped, and then recapped.

Hal kisses his cheek, and then Jane’s hands are in his hair again, petting him affectionately. The buzzing from all vibrating components has temporarily ceased, but he can still hear Jane’s breathing as she gradually slows it. 

“Dirk,” she begins, her touches moving from his hair to his collarbone, to his shoulders and chest. “Do you have a preference for how you want to finish?”

“I’m like five seconds from just jacking it, if you guys keep this up.” 

“You can do that if you want,” Jane says. Her hands return to his hair, moving his bangs away from his forehead, brushing her thumbs over his eyebrows. He arches into it, still close to her thigh. “Or, if you like, with Hal’s help, maybe I could fuck you.”

“Like, my ass?” He opens his eyes, finally, and looks up at her, upside down. Her hair’s in her face, and her face is flushed. 

She meets his gaze and nods, grinning down at him. “Like your ass.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, man.” Dirk rolls onto his side and puts his head fully in her lap, his cheek against her hip. “Hal can get you started if you have like, uh.” Her hands in his hair are distracting, and he’s a combination of aroused and exhausted. “If you have a harness and whatever.”

“Lift your leg,” Hal says, and Dirk does, so that Hal can tease a lube-slick fingertip against his asshole. 

“Oh my god, yeah.” He bites his lip, and hears Jane inhale when he does so. “You guys have both had a bunch of orgasms already, right?”

“I’d say I lost count, but we all know that’s not true,” Hal confirms. “Jane, I think you’re at two, right?”

“That’s right.” She supports Dirk’s head as she gets up, and carefully lets his cheek move from her thigh to the mattress.

Dirk takes a deep breath and holds it as Hal slides a finger inside him, curls it slightly, puts his other hand on his dick. He closes his eyes again. “God, that’s not fair.”

“All’s fair in love, war, and Pokémon battles, Dirk.”

Dirk feels the bed shift as Jane kneels over him and leans down. He can feel her breath on his face, and he tilts his chin up to accept it as she kisses him. 

He keeps his eyes closed, falls into the simple movements of it, as she lays her fingertips on his jawline and gently guides him towards herself, her short nails scratching lightly through the start of sideburns as her mouth moves on his. Between his legs, Hal’s pulled his finger out and added more lube several times over, and his dick is dripping precome, coaxed by Hal’s hand to string stickily from his stomach to his glans. 

“Fuck me,” he says, to both of them. “Please.”

Jane kisses his forehead, between his brows, and gets up from the bed. Hal keeps his finger moving, stretching him steadily, and Dirk curls his toes against the sheets.

He opens his eyes to watch as Jane straps herself into a harness she must’ve alchemized for if she ever had an opportunity like this, and slides Hal’s dick through the cloth? elastic? ring in the center of what looks very much like swimsuit fabric. She tightens the straps crossing over her hips and thighs and turns to Hal, who pulls his hand away from Dirk and lowers his mouth onto his own robo-dong, licking across it, the blue glow illuminating his face.

“I’ve still got lube in my mouth,” he explains, through the speaker, as if they both forgot. “Anybody need the password to my dick’s Wi-Fi?” 

“Do you just autofellate all the time?” Jane asks.

“I can convince my brain to feel this any time I want, so, kind of yes and no.” He spits out the last of the lube from his mouth onto the dildo, then moves his mouth with his speech. “Can I suck on this physically any time I want? Yeah. Do I bypass a lot of the meatspace motions of it and recreate it in my brain instead? Totally.”

“That’s hot.” 

“I know, right?”

Jane kisses Hal quickly before putting her hands on Dirk’s inner thighs and gently easing them further apart. She then seats herself between his legs. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Dirk spreads his legs even more, opening himself up to her. “Please.”

Jane runs her hand down along from his knee to his shin. “Tell me if it hurts. I’m really just guessing here.”

Dirk does his best to get a better view, craning his neck, as she grips the dildo at the base, the blue LEDs glowing on the sheet of sweat on his skin, and guides its head into his ass. This is the same dick that Dirk’s been accustomed to taking for years, and it’s comfortable and familiar, but steered by someone completely different. He watches Hal watching this unfold, pleasure present in his expression, well aware that Hal can feel everything as Jane gains the confidence in the motion to slide fully into him.

His hamstrings are tense, he’s hard as hell, and Hal used enough lube that he doesn’t really need Jane to pull out and add more, although with Hal’s assistance, she does anyway. 

“Please,” he breathes, urgently. “Please fuck me.”

Jane gets a grip on his knees and pushes against him, and Dirk lets out a soft, gasping grunt. She pulls out, thrusts back in, and he repeats the sound, his eyes locked with hers. 

The LED light intensifies every time she thrusts into him, backlighting his balls. Her breasts move with each snap of her hips. She leans over him, resting her weight on her left elbow and reaching down to grip his cock with her right, pumping him shallowly against his stomach with a lube-slicked hand, jostling his foreskin over his precome. 

“Man, you guys look hot as all get-out.” As Hal speaks, Dirk glances to him, now cross-legged on the bed, watching the show. “Jane, I wish I could beam into your head how tight he feels. It’s pretty great.”

“I want you to come for me.” Jane kisses Dirk’s face, at his jawline, lips trailing across stubble, and takes his earlobe briefly between her teeth. Her thrusting is erratic, unpracticed, but Dirk’s into it, and the press of her chest against his is going a long way. “I just want to make you come.”

“Who knew you had it in you, Crocker?” Hal’s pleased with himself, off to the side. “And now you’ve got it in him.”

Jane’s tight grip works him over, sweaty and frantic, and Dirk tilts his head towards her to try to kiss her, open mouthed, her tongue touching briefly to his before she returns her efforts to his earlobe, and the spot just below his ear, on his throat. 

She thrusts into him again, her arm encircling him, her other hand squeezing him, the weight of her hips spreading him open, and he comes hard, gasping into the air where her mouth had been, feeling his jizz spurt onto his chest and pool in his navel.

“Oh my god,” he gasps. “Oh fuck.” 

Jane pulls out before he’s truly ready, and he groans at the loss. “I’m sorry, Dirk, the angle’s kind of hard on my back, and—”

“Ha, you said hard-on.” Hal’s fingertips start buzzing again, and Dirk watches as he runs his hand up and down along Jane’s spine. “Well done, everybody. Five out of five fucking hats, for fucking.”

Dirk’s heart is still racing, his skin still dripping sweat, and he’s coated in lube and spunk. “I need a towel, or something.”

“We can shower,” Jane offers. “I hear you’re known for those.”

Dirk lifts both of his hands to reach for the two of them, and it takes very little convincing to have them each at his side. Jane keeps petting his hair. Hal rests his head on Dirk’s shoulder.

“Holy fuck, you guys.” His pulse is barely coming under control, and he shivers with the lingering aftershocks of his afterglow. “Jesus.”

“I believe it’s pronounced ‘Jegus’, actually.” Hal snakes his hand down Dirk’s side to lace their fingers together. Dirk squeezes back.

Jane curls her arm over Dirk’s waist, undeterred by the mess, and presses a kiss against the crown of his head. “Thank you.”

Dirk laughs, breathless. “Anytime.”

“In case anyone still needed it, the Wi-Fi pass is _manbro bukkake theater_.”

“Hal,” Dirk starts, before he can change his mind, before he can stop himself. “My dude, my guy, the love of my fuckin’ doomed life.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you please, just like... just at least _consider_ apologizing to Jake?”

Hal tenses against him, and keeps his face pressed to Dirk’s shoulder. “Man, for what? I was real young and real stupid.”

“Dude, so was he.” Dirk squeezes his hand again. “Just, at least for the head injuries? Please?”

“You know I don’t remember this shit _like_ it was yesterday, right? I remember it all exactly.” Hal rubs his thumb over Dirk’s. “I know you know this. Now Jane knows this, too.”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t owe you the same, for the anti-robot rhetoric and being fuckin’ mean.” Dirk leans his cheek against Hal’s head. “Just... I dunno.”

Jane reaches across Dirk to pet Hal’s hair. “We can all talk about it when we’re done being post-coital, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, we can. I’m cool with talking about it.” Hal lifts his head towards Jane’s hand. “I love you motherfuckers. Just FYI.”

Dirk sighs, still reeling, staring up at the drywall. “Christ, why did we all take so long to do this?”

“You know what they say, bro.”

“Hm?”

“Newfags can’t triforce.”

Dirk lets out an exasperated noise, like acknowledging an atrocious pun, and finally allows himself to fully relax.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy ~~Pride~~ Wrath Month, nobody’s allowed to demand that you label yourself


End file.
